Cougar's Prey (9781101544846) (15 page)

There was no reason to believe that McNelly would send Josiah to Corpus for punishment, to be killed or captured by Cortina, or for revenge, as Miguel had suggested in the room above the cantina. It made no sense to Josiah—and the fact that Miguel had now, essentially, disappeared, his debt repaid to Juan Carlos, didn't add to the story's believability—but he wanted to find out if Scrap had heard anything similar.

McNelly had returned home after the meeting in Austin and was operating now from his ranch in Burton, directing his league of spies to keep track of the cattle rustlers in south Texas. The relationship Josiah held with McNelly, especially after their face-to-face meeting, was less than accommodating, but still Josiah was having a hard time even considering the idea that the man meant him harm.

Somewhere in the distance, Josiah heard a gunshot. South, near the shore.

He turned down the nearest street—Lawrence, he thought it was. He was certain that the street ended at a long pier that stretched pretty far out into the water, the horizon and whatever lay beyond a mystery that he could not imagine.

Josiah urged on Clipper, who gladly responded, nearing a full run but holding back until the reins were let loose.

Beyond the gunshot, Josiah started to hear the murmur of what he thought was a crowd.

As he rushed down the street, even from the distance away that he still was, the growing ruckus sounded like a gathering swarm of insects, bees maybe, with the hive under threat. The rumble of anger was rising into the night air like a familiar song.

The thing was, though, Josiah didn't know what he was riding into—and still the street was vacant, like all of the town's inhabitants had fled. Or worse, like he had ridden into a ghost town, anybody living having been plucked from the beds, barber chairs, and saloons a long time ago.

He eased back on Clipper, and the Appaloosa came to a steady, decisive stop.

The stallion stood waiting for its next instruction, next command. The loyalty of the horse was a great comfort to Josiah, even when he didn't recognize, or express, the feeling consciously.

He did now, though, knowing full well that he had left Maria Villareal in harm's way because of Clipper, because he refused to leave the horse behind. How could anyone know why he had done such a thing? Even Josiah couldn't fully explain his action, leaving a woman behind to defend herself, no matter how capable she appeared to be. But he had lost Clipper once before, had been stripped of everything he owned, and it wasn't going to happen to him again. Josiah had made that promise to himself when he had been lucky enough to get the horse back, along with nearly everything else he'd lost.

Josiah was surprised that he had acted almost as impetuously as Scrap Elliot. Perhaps he had come under the spell of his own guise, acting as he thought Zeb Teter would. Still, that thought did not absolve Josiah of any wrongs, and he knew he would have to face the consequences of his actions sooner or later. Hopefully, all that would amount to would be a grand apology to a healing and healthy Maria Villareal.

He was close enough to the buzzing crowd to see the glow of a large fire shimmering over a few of the single-storey buildings that stood along the shore.

The smell of wood smoke was different than that of the burning house earlier in the day. This smelled like pure wood—very similar to the driftwood fire he had shared with Juan Carlos outside of the fishing shacks.

Josiah dismounted, pulled his Winchester out of the scabbard, then grabbed Clipper's reins and made his way toward the noise and light.

Just across an intersection, Josiah could see the silhouette of a deep crowd, gray images transforming into a mass of well-dressed and stricken people alike, pushing and gouging to move forward, to get a better view of . . . something.

He picked up his pace, tightening his grip on Clipper's reins, until he was close enough to see clearly over the heads of hundreds of people. The street sloped down toward the bay, providing a wide view as the buildings fell away and the road ended at the pier.

A gallows had been erected—or stood permanently, Josiah didn't know which—at the point on the land before sand completely took over the beach. A large bonfire burned brightly behind the simple stand of wood, and only one hangman's noose dangled in the breeze.

Three men stood on the gallows. One was a lawman of some note, since he wore a silver star on his chest, probably the marshal or county sheriff. Josiah had met neither man, deciding to keep his identity as much a secret as possible.

The man next to the lawman was a short Mexican, hands bound behind him, feet shackled. Most likely the cause of the gathering.

Josiah wondered if the man was Cortina himself, since he had no earthly idea what the Mexican outlaw and cattle rustler looked like.

He would find out quickly enough, as it were, since the man standing on the other side of the doomed Mexican was Scrap Elliot himself, egging on the crowd, enjoying being the center of attention, getting the population of Corpus Christi all lathered up for the impending hanging.

Josiah could not reach Scrap Elliot before the noose was slipped around the Mexican's quivering neck. Pushing through the crowd was proving to be nearly an impossible feat. Every inch of ground had been claimed by a man, woman, or child, pulled from the comfort of his or her home to view a spectacle that obviously could not wait until morning.

Clipper had been tied to a hitching post just beyond the start of the pier, along with a collection of other mounts, hosted by a young boy eager to take a bit to keep an eye on the horses. Josiah was leery of trusting the boy, a shaghaired waif of no more than ten, but felt like he had little choice.

Standing now, unable to move much farther forward, Josiah asked a man next to him what he knew of the hanging.

The man, tall and hefty, with thick blond hair poking out from under a floppy brown felt work hat, spoke with an accent that Josiah did not know the origin of. He spoke with a squeak and pronounced his r's really long, like he was growling all the time. The accent wasn't German or Irish, the most common foreign tongue Josiah had encountered.

“One of Cortina's men that lived,” the man said.

Josiah nodded. “The attack failed then?”

“It did,” the man said, nodding, too, not taking his eyes off the Mexican. A priest was saying a prayer over the man. Josiah looked away. “None too many of them lived,” the man continued. “Cortina will try again, but we need more help from the north, from the powers in Austin, to stop the villains that strive to take what is ours and not theirs.”

Still uncertain how much longer to keep his spy identity a secret, Josiah groaned in agreement. “Maybe someday they will send the Rangers down here.”

“Someday may be too late. There's a gatherin' of men goin' after Cortina.”

“Into Mexico?” Josiah asked.

“Wherever the trail leads. Blood was spilled. The deed must be paid in full. Cortina's head on a stick would end it all—for a day or two until another outlaw steps up to take his place. Thievery abounds when there's so much money to be made in the north country.”

Josiah took a deep breath and restrained himself from saying anything further. Even he knew that a vigilante raid into Mexico was a recipe for more trouble than the people of Corpus Christi were bargaining for. They certainly had a right to want revenge against Cortina for the raid, but there were more civilized ways of ending the violence, as far as he was concerned. Ways that would not lead to a larger war. There was no question that Josiah now knew he had to communicate with his superiors—Captain McNelly and the commander of all the Frontier Battalion, Major Jones, and maybe even the adjunct general himself, William Steele, as soon as possible—before things got out of hand. Before a war started. There were channels set up to do just that—but first, he needed to retrieve Scrap Elliot, and see what damage had been done to their cover.

“I'd be careful out there,” Josiah said, taking leave of the man with a nod, pushing forward.

“Won't be me. I got a wife and six children to feed. Work's my only revenge, as long as I am alive,” the man said.

“Excuse me,” Josiah said, trying to ease past two women looking up briefly to the gallows.

The priest had finished his business with the doomed man. Maybe all of the Mexican's sins had been absolved, his path to heaven open and free—if that were possible, or to be believed. Religion was not a concern of Josiah's. Not since the preacher man in Tyler had objected to coming to the side of his dying wife, Lily, who had asked to be prayed across the river of death. The man was afraid of catching her sickness, afraid his own journey to see his Maker would be hastened.

Josiah had never been much of a believer in the first place; seeing too much war and suffering made sure of that. He could never agree that a higher being was making all of the plans, guiding every man's actions. Such thoughts brought about nothing but pain and sadness. Once he'd lost his own family, a church to him was nothing more than a building full of sheep, eager to accept an order of nothing but chaos and greed. All a man had to do was look around to see the truth as far as Josiah was concerned. Still, he held little contempt for a man that believed; sometimes he wished he could imagine a day when he would be reunited with those that he had lost, living side by side with them for eternity. It all sounded too good to be true to him.

“Excuse me,” Josiah said again. The women who were blocking his way complained with disdainful moans, almost in unison, but finally squeezed together and allowed Josiah by.

It took a concerted effort, but Josiah made his way to the front line of viewers, to the foot of the gallows, pushing out of the crowd, coming to a stop just at the steps that led upward.

The hangman had slipped the rope around the Mexican's neck, then placed a black hood over the man's head.

Josiah stood and watched. There was nothing else to do. It was not the first time he had been witness to a hanging.

The crowd grew quiet, and Scrap, upon seeing Josiah, stepped back into the shadows, behind the priest.

Scrap Elliot was about a head shorter than the padre, lacking any facial hair, his skin soft. He was a scrawny boy, still coming into manhood, with not an ounce of fat on his bones anywhere to be seen. He was all muscle. Which was a good thing—except for the muscles that operated his mouth, as far as Josiah was concerned.

Watching a man hang was never an easy thing, but like every citizen that had staked a claim to be witness to justice, Josiah could not, or would not, look away.

The hangman tightened the knot on the left side of the man's neck, just under the jaw.

The drop would dislocate the neck bone, then sever the spinal cord—if everything worked as it should—bringing a swift and sudden death to the outlaw. But most of the time, hangings didn't go as planned—for whatever reason, intent or lack of experience by the hangman. In some cases, the rope was too long, so the victim's feet would drag the ground, the death slow and suffocating. Intention was obvious if that happened; if hanging wasn't enough, a slow death was its own revenge in some men's minds.

Josiah had never seen such a thing, hoped he never would, but he'd heard of it—recently, when the kin of John Wesley Hardin had been hanged in Comanche. Josiah's own neck had been intended for the noose more than once, and it was only by good luck and good fortune that he wasn't a dead man himself.

Before Josiah could take another breath, the lever was pulled, and the trapdoor flew open beneath the Mexican's bound feet.

If there was a plan to save the man, it was too late. He had been abandoned, left to the fate of the rope—which stretched out like it should, snapping the appropriate bone.

But something went wrong.

The man bounced upward too high. Maybe the rope was too new or chosen poorly by type. Whatever the reason, there was give in it, and on the halting descent, the man's hooded head popped off at the neck, severed like the cap of a mushroom with a sharp knife.

The head went flying through the moonlit night like a cannonball, shot into the air by a silent weapon. It landed with a thud at the foot of a proper lady dressed in scarlet velvet and white satin that was now drenched with the blood of an invader.

The silence of the deed was broken by a constant highpitched and heightening scream, then a thud as the woman wilted to the ground in a faint.